Out of the Frying Pan

Monday, September 10, 

I now understand why my brother and sister-in-law took a whole week to see Rome. At the time it just didn't make any sense to me, and so, when it was my turn to plan this trip I only allotted three days in Rome. What I did not figure in was how tired and sick I was by the time we arrived and so we didn't accomplish anything the first day. The second day I still was feeling bad but charged ahead to the Vatican. By the time we were finished there, I was completely out of energy and still not keeping food down. After an all too short rest, we went on a three hour Segway tour of Rome at night. I thought I would die, but we saw so much that we would have missed otherwise, and Segways are a lot of fun to ride. We finally got something to eat about 10:30 p.m. which was about the first food that I was able to eat in two days. The next day we did the Colosseum and the catacombs and wasted a couple of hours waiting for the bus. We had a very tasty and relaxing dinner at Campo di Fiori, and then took in the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. We did everything that we wanted to do, but it was just too hard to do all of that in two days. This morning we took a bus out to Fiumicino to pick up the rental car. What a nightmare! The whole shebang took about three hours, and then to add insult to injury we have no way to charge anything in the car. That shouldn't be a problem since we have been able to charge the laptop, my phone, and my nook in our rooms. We always keep the car charger plugged in when using the Garmin, and there we were with no idea if the Garmin would last long enough to get us to Sorrento. We kept it off as long as possible but took a wrong turn as we were leaving Naples. That is when we turned it on, in the middle of some city. It was in the midst of telling us how to get out of the town when it totally died. It took us forever to find our way just using the Atlas, but when we got to Sorrento we couldn't find the hotel. Finally, we stopped at another hotel and they showed us on a town map how to get to where we wanted to go. Driving in Italy is not a lot of fun. Between the stick shift, the wild drivers all around us, the suicidal scooters riders, and the giant buses, it was all Brian could do to get us here. That's why we decided to go with the tour options for Capri and the Amalfi Coast. Both will pick us up here and drop us off at the end of the day. That is also why we are going to eat tonight at a restaurant that will pick us up and deliver us back. We honestly thought that getting out of Rome would end the crowds and narrow streets, and the traffic, but we went from the frying pan to the fire today.